


The Angel Doubted

by phocion



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Supernatural
Genre: Dark, Hell, Super Omens, Supernatural/Good Omens Crossover, Torture, mostly happens off screen but heads up for content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-09
Updated: 2013-05-09
Packaged: 2017-12-10 22:15:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/790783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phocion/pseuds/phocion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fanfiction based in the Shadow universe of icarus_chained (http://archiveofourown.org/series/17706).  </p><p>Out of all of the denizens of Hell who'd poked and prodded, tortured and mutilated and humiliated Aziraphale and Crowley over the centuries, only three had really left a mark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Angel Doubted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [icarus_chained](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/gifts).



> This fic is entirely inspired by icarus_chained's phenomenal, haunting Shadow series. I couldn't get it out of my head and it's one of the few works out there I've read multiple times and simply can't get enough of. If you're going to read this, read THAT first. This takes place roughly before the 1st installment of that series, Shadow Play.

Out of all of the denizens of Hell who'd poked and prodded, tortured and mutilated and humiliated over the centuries, only three had really left a mark, metaphorically speaking.  
The imps were more about brute force and massive hordes, with biting and scraping and plundering. They always knew when the imps were coming, as the thunderous patter of hooves mixed with the exasperated sighs of the onlookers. The imps were unleashed every so often as an afterthought, a quick parenthesis to remind them that they weren't forgotten. The demons formerly known as humans, they tried, those few who were let onto their stage. They lacked the brutality of the imps, the finesse of the professionals, and they simply resorted to taunts or relatively mundane tortures they'd seen on television when they'd been alive. Hell was a hierarchy, after all, and each hierarchy had hierarchies and then some. The majority of the populace had become these former humans, and within that strata you had the professionals. 

The first was Alistair.

Torture was an art to him and he wielded a scalpel as fine as any painter with a brush. Every other demon was afraid of him, and not in the way you might expect. Other demons had a proper Fear for the original, the Fallen who began this whole mess, and of course abject terror of the Morningstar, but Alistair just downright creeped them all out. 

You see, torture was more than cutting and raping and bleeding to Alistair. Like any good artist worth his salt, the frame was just as important as the canvas, the atmosphere as essential as the coloring. 

Alistair had tied them both up when they'd been put into his charge, all those centuries ago. When Aziraphale could still see, when Crowley could still speak. And oh, did Crowley speak that day, or however long it was. He threatened, cursed, spat with the best of them. Every demon within earshot had cowered. Except Alistair, who'd smiled.

He had a plan, you see. The others had wanted the newbies separated, but Alistair had a much better idea. He didn't silence Crowley until he'd blinded Aziraphale. Those clear blue eyes had glanced up at Alistair in what can only be described as righteous irritation, almost daring him. When the poker came up Aziraphale fixed his gaze on Crowley with a small, sad smile. Crowley's face, horrified and haunted and ruined, was the last Aziraphale would ever see.

Alistair had kept them separated after, Aziraphale's body hanging limply in his chains while Crowley struggled against his, calling to him, reassuring him. Alistair let that go for a bit before he delicately and gently sewed Crowley's mouth shut. When Crowley's angry screams and desperate calls silenced Aziraphale had become a bit desperate. And Alistair had smiled.

He'd done much in the interim but that was always the worst. That moment of perpetual doubt he'd planted in the angel's mind: was Crowley alive? was he even there? where were they? Even curled together for centuries on the cold dark ground, limbs entwined, Crowley could see it on the angel's face; the doubt. Was Crowley a desperate illusion? Was Crowley only another trick?

Alistair physically scarred them, and had given them doubt.

The fallen angels, the first of them all, they didn't get into the torture so much. They had their complex bureaucracy and went in only for the big ones, the new arrivals from Topside. They did have the best seats in the house, of course, to watch. 

The crowds had swelled with jeering, desperate faces clamoring for a glimpse. Up the balconies of their little mausoleum, down the rock hewn stairs they gathered, and the Best of them sat in Hell's very own bleachers, watching. The fallen angels watched differently than the other demons. The demons jeered because they ached, watched in angry and pained silence at the rustling of feathers and the slide of skin against skin. The fallen angels were like stone. Most of them hadn't seen a proper angel for over six thousand years, and they sat staring at this perverted glimpse into the Heaven they'd abandoned with impenetrable stoicism. 

Except Hastur.

Crowley had expected him the moment they'd been brought down, had dreaded him even more than Alistair's hooded eyes. With Alistair it was art. With Hastur it was personal. 

They'd already been confined to darkness and silence, but Alistair hadn't yet let them touch. Crowley had watched for a good century as Aziraphale slowly broke down. And it wasn't due to the torture, a constant in those early days. Every week or so Alistair would partake in or supervise a daylong session, and then leave them to hang there, so far apart. It drove Crowley nearly mad, trying to communicate, trying to reassure. Aziraphale did, after the demon du jour would leave, would whisper a fleeting consoling word loud enough for Crowley to hear. Each time his voice sounded heavier and weaker all at once. But it was obvious he thought he himself alone, thought Crowley long gone. And it was ruining him. Ruining them both.

Crowley had known something was up when their usual throng seemed to triple, a nervous excitement rippling through them. Aziraphale noticed something amiss as well, it seemed. Though his Grace and senses were terribly dulled the electricity of that moment was unmistakable. 

Hastur cackled as he entered, and what was left of Crowley's heart sunk into his stomach. He tried to make his glare both threatening and sardonic, but it probably just looked sick. Hastur walked right up to him in all of his maggoty glory and sneered. Crowley, tied tight to his column, tried not to wrinkle his nose.

"My, my," Hastur crooned. "If it ain't my lucky day." Crowley briefly closed his eyes against the spit which flecked his face. "Used to run with this flash bastard," Hastur said conversationally. "Always had some clever word to say. You wouldn't happen to know where he got off to, would you?" 

Crowley rolled his eyes. It was as sarcastic as he could manage. He purposefully did not look at Aziraphale. He didn't want Hastur's personal attention but he certainly didn't want the brute taking it out on his angel.

But of course, that wasn't Hastur's style. Hastur had been waiting centuries for this, he explained as he kindly removed Crowley's internal organs. He'd had a lot of time to plan, he said as he burned through Crowley's wing. Fancied himself a bit creative, as he shoved his tail inside him.

All in all it wasn't that creative, but then Crowley wasn't surprised. Creativity was not a demon's forte. In fact, there'd been many philosophical dissertations postulating that demons could not create, though Crowley knew that wasn't true. Alistair could create. 

Still, what Hastur lacked in creativity he made up for with the brutality of a thousand demons. 

And finally Crowley made a sound. The tearing of the flesh around his mouth as the strings were pulled to their utmost, as his lips parted just enough to let the guttural noise through. 

He glanced up as Hastur deposited him on the ground. Aziraphale was crying and smiling and muttering, "I knew it. I knew it."

Hastur had his way with the angel, almost as an afterthought, a final 'fuck you' to Crowley, but Aziraphale smiled throughout, his milky white eyes fixed in Crowley's general direction. And when Hastur at last left them, both limp and trembling on the ground, Aziraphale said, "Hello, dear." And Crowley choked out a wet laugh which caught in the threads. 

Hastur had given them a silver lining, as roundabout as it was. He'd reintroduced them to each other. He'd given them hope.

They spent the next century apart but Aziraphale knew the game now. And while they continued to break he now knew he wasn't alone.

Crowley and Aziraphale had always drawn a crowd, but after a few centuries of keeping them apart Alistair had loosened the chains and they began their dance and became the stuff of legend. Demons watched in lustful silence, their fingers twitching for a taste and their souls aching for the beauty. Only Alistair touched them after that, and then only infrequently. Alistair had created the perfect torture to inflict on the entirety of Hell: a living monument to what every demon could never have. Every demon except Crowley, of course, though no one referred to him by either name. To them, he was not a demon, or that flash bastard Crawly. He was the Fallen. 

The myth of Crowley held them more than Aziraphale, if only because looking at the angel for too long began to physically hurt them. They all wanted him, lusted after him and the idea of him, but they identified with Crowley. Some of them even wondered, even entertained the fleeting thought that if the Fallen could do it, couldn't they? They couldn't, or wouldn't, define what it was. They couldn't call it love. It had taken Crowley thousands of years on Earth and an infinitely patient angel to begin to understand the concept, and even then it had taken an almost Apocalypse to drive the point home. These demons weren't so lucky, but they wondered, and none more so than the King of the Crossroads, the face Crowley saw in the crowds the most, pupils blown with lust, face a picture of despair.

In the centuries they spent curled into each other they'd developed a language, fingers ghosting across skin to convey thought and feeling. Their limbs, their skin, their minds fused together. Crowley hadn't been stripped of his powers when they'd been brought down, at least not to the point where he couldn’t exercise a bit of the old demonic tricks of subtle telepathy. He could use Aziraphale's mouth to speak if need be, and Aziraphale could use Crowley's golden eyes to see, though he'd rather not. 

And though they faced an eternity of pain at least they did so together. 

Until he came.

Alistair had been absent for thirty odd years when he'd slunk back in. Their chains were their only warning, as they were abruptly wrenched apart, crashing against their respective pillars. Crowley glanced up. The crowd was different, even different from Hastur's appearance. There was a tension in the air, a perverse hope and desperate need for escape. 

Alistair smiled at Crowley but ignored him in favor of Aziraphale. Alistair had gotten the idea that Hastur hadn't, that the others couldn't. The idea of another being more important than the self wasn't one a demon could grasp. But Alistair had made a study of it and though he may not understand it fundamentally he recognized an efficient method when he learnt one. The best way to torture Crowley was not with imps or knives or blood, but with Aziraphale. When Aziraphale bled Crowley bled, and when Aziraphale screamed Crowley screamed. 

He explained all of this out loud to no one in particular, it seemed, as he made his slow, deliberate way to the angel. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. And Crowley could feel it, straining at his bonds in a way he hadn't done since those first few centuries.

In truth, Alistair also enjoyed the angel more, at least on a strictly personal level, you understand. On the rack, Crowley was almost no fun at all. He was a seasoned veteran of Hell. He'd got a commendation for the Spanish Inquisition, didn't you know? But angels didn't have torture, not like this. They didn't have the capacity for hatred and malice that demons do. As a demon cannot understand love or selflessness an angel has rather a tough time with wanton, cold-blooded cruelty. It doesn't compute, as they say Topside. A demon would just accept the pain but an angel would always wonder: why? 

"It's even better than doing humans," Alistair drawled, at last stopping inches in front of him. "Because in them there's at least a potential for such cruelty, but an angel?" Alistair tssked softly, brushing a finger delicately over Aziraphale's cheek. "But then, you might as well see for yourself. It's all part of the training process for the best and the brightest." His hot breath ghosted over Aziraphale's face but the angel gave him no reaction. Mostly. 

Alistair turned to look across their stage at Crowley, who was taut with tension. "Didn't I mention?" Alistair asked him conversationally. "I've got myself an apprentice."

And then He entered, stage left.

His shoulders were bent, his body tense and alive in a way even an angel's couldn't be. He walked with a heaviness unknown to noncorporeal figures, mind shut in a way no ethereal being could. 

A human.

The human.

As soon as his foot hit the stage Aziraphale gasped, his milky eyes widening. Crowley didn't know the mythology or prophecies but Aziraphale knew them all and Crowley watched him shudder. "No," breathed the angel as the human approached with stilted steps and haunted eyes. The human was trembling when he finally stopped at Alistair's side, and he was crying.

"He's nervous," Alistair explained fondly. The two were caught up in each other, the angel and the human, and Alistair spoke mostly to Crowley, who was at as much of a loss as the rest of the audience. Alistair laid a hand on the human's shoulder, and he shuddered. "This is your final exam," Alistair said. "You've done imps, demons, and humans, passing with flying colors. But if you want to be valedictorian you've got to do the angel."

Now Crowley was shaking, blood dripping from his skin where he tore at his bonds.

"Why don't you show the class what you've learned?" said Alistair.

The human's shaking became violent. "It's alright, dear," Aziraphale whispered. 

The human did. 

It was somehow worse than all of the other times. Alistair was an artist, Hastur was personal, but this human was desperate. Alistair had experimented and gave clinical notes, Hastur had laughed and gloated, but the human just worked. 

No one cheered. No one laughed. The only sound was the rattle of Crowley's chains as he fought to be freed, the gasps of the angel and, very softly, the slap of a wet tear on the stone floor as it fell from the human's face.

When it was done Alistair loosened the bonds and the angel fell into a bloody heap on the ground, unmoving, and the human looked dead. 

"Finish him off," Alistair instructed as if telling a primary school kid to recite the alphabet.

The human leaned down and spoke into the angel's ear, loud enough for Crowley to hear. "I'm going to kill him," said the human in a deep, broken voice. It was the first noise he'd uttered the entire time.

"Please," begged the angel through a mouthful of blood.

"I'll leave you his wings," the human continued, hollow. Aziraphale choked on a sob.

In the end he didn't touch Crowley. He didn't need to. 

He stepped off of their stage and disappeared into the depths of Hell.

They were left completely alone for a year. Aziraphale remained huddled where he'd fallen. Crowley remained bound to his post. After the first few months Aziraphale stopped crying. After the first six months he stopped moving. 

He almost didn't notice when their chains were loosened. He wouldn't have if he hadn't fallen flat on his face. He didn't take a minute to wonder at it but sprang forward, running and crawling and desperate to reach his angel. 

Aziraphale's eyes were open, staring off into nothing. Crowley reached out a trembling hand and brought it down softly on those matted blonde curls. Aziraphale didn't react. Crowley brought his fingers down to the angel's cheek, told him he was here, he was alive, please, please.

Crowley curled against him, drew him inside and stayed like that. Until Aziraphale spoke. "You're dead." Doubt. Crowley responded with the first thing he thought of. We both are. Aziraphale nodded. Crowley wrapped him in limbs, in wings. Burrowed his face into the angel's hair, and Aziraphale gripped him tighter than any chains.

They were still like that when all Hell broke loose, so to speak, and a garrison of angels tore through. Crowley watched them with disinterest. Aziraphale didn't react. Their stage had been bound in the heaviest of wards, branded into the ground, seared into their bones. Michael himself wouldn't have been able to touch them, and God Himself would have had a tough go of it.

Do you want to see them? Crowley asked, but Aziraphale shook his head. "It hurts enough to feel them," he whispered.

And the angels didn't spare them a second glance. They had a Mission. Typical of the post-Fall garrison types, Aziraphale explained. The young generation. Very goal oriented. Crowley thought they were right bastards, when he bothered to think about them. 

Then why are they even here? Crowley asked against Aziraphale's chest.

The angel hesitated before he answered in a tremulous voice, "The Righteous Man."

They'd fought the Apocalypse and won. They'd sacrificed everything to save humanity. Throughout all the centuries, the near millennia they'd been confined to Hell, that had been the one abstract assurance Crowley had kept. Whatever happened to them sucked, but at least they'd done it.

When Aziraphale explained the prophecies in a dead voice, Crowley at last understood.

The Righteous Man had given them despair.

Only one angel looked back. One little angel with deep blue eyes. He looked at Aziraphale and locked eyes with Crowley. Goal-oriented, mission-focused, but Crowley saw a glimmer of regret, a flicker of doubt. Crowley was too tired to smile at him, even if he could've. It was a nice thought, at least, that one might care enough to allow a consideration of their rescue. But then the little angel was off again, and soon Hell was ablaze with demonic chatter, and It was happening at last, and He would rise.

And they didn't care, the angel and the Fallen. They only had a mind for each other and the sad knowledge that it wouldn't last. This was the climax, not the denouement. Alistair would return to paint a new picture, or Hastur to just finish one of them off, but the result was the same. Someone would come for them.

They hadn't expected who, and they certainly hadn't fathomed why.

But even now, in Julie's guest bedroom with a light spring breeze wafting over their naked skin, bodies pressed against each other under a soft blanket, feathers rustling overhead, Aziraphale's fingers ghosted over Crowley's skin. Crowley kissed his temple. Whispered reassurances with his fingers (not with his voice, never with his voice). This is real, I'm here, I'm real. 

But the angel doubted.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank icarus_chained not only for a beautiful work but for being so kind and accommodating to an obsessive fan.


End file.
